Vacant homes invite problems

Sunday

Sep 30, 2012 at 12:01 AMSep 30, 2012 at 7:46 AM

An increasing number of vacant houses in Canton mean the increasing number of homeless people have places to go, no matter how dangerous. The Stark County Treasurer’s Office has just received grant money to address the issue.

Lori Monsewicz

Nearly 18 percent of the city’s single-family houses are vacant, leaving plenty of real estate for vagrants to occupy. And that can lead to fire dangers.

But the Stark County Treasurer’s office recently received a grant to address the matter.

Last week alone, there were five fires in vacant houses. A half-dozen vagrants were in a house at 615 Wells Ave. SW on Wednesday when it caught fire. Hours after fleeing the burning structure, one of the vagrants moved back in.

The next day, three other vacant houses on Wells caught fire.

On Saturday, an “Arson” sign hung on the front wall of the first house that burned.

And a fifth fire in a vacant house on 11th Street NW happened Saturday afternoon. Firefighters hadn’t yet determined if it was deliberately set.

The number of Canton’s homeless is on the rise — and so is the number of vacant houses in the city.

County Treasurer Alexander A. Zumbar said his office received a $2 million Moving Ohio Forward Demolition Grant earlier this month. The money will be used to raze vacant structures, particularly in Canton, Massillon and Alliance, where vacant houses pose the biggest problems.

MORE HOMELESS, MORE VACANT HOMES

The Stark County Homeless Services Collaborative statistics show the “point-in-time” count of homeless people in January was 1,257, up nearly 17 percent from last year’s count, according to the Stark County Homeless Council’s website.

Amanda Fletcher, housing development coordinator for ICAN’s homeless outreach program, said people who come to her agency for assistance admit they’ve stayed in vacant houses. “I don’t think it’s necessarily new to our agency that there would be homeless people in the vacant houses.”

Jason Frost, chief deputy of real estate for the Stark County Auditor’s Office ,said that while his office does not track residency, the auditor’s office records show Canton has 22,824 single-family houses.

Of those houses, 143 are condemned properties, 4,054 are vacant houses and 3,311 are vacant lots, according to figures from the county treasurer’s and auditor’s offices.

The numbers indicate that nearly 18 percent of single-family houses in Canton are vacant.

Zumbar said that the actual number could be even higher.

Angela Cavanaugh, chief building official for the city’s Building Department, agrees. She said the numbers could fluctuate drastically on a daily basis.

Although owners are expected to register with the city when their houses go vacant, “most of the time they do not, because it’s an abandoned house,” Cavanaugh said.

THE TROUBLE WITH VACANT HOUSES

Property tax on a vacant house goes unpaid. The city is left to board it up, mow the grass around it, cut the weeds, pick up the litter and eventually demolish it, all of which are costly and fall onto the buyer — if anyone buys it.

Vacant homes are primary targets for thieves who rip out aluminum siding and spouting, copper wire, copper pipe, water tanks and furnaces.

And then the vagrants move in.

“What can we do? We board up (vacant houses) and (vagrants) come back with a crowbar, tear off the boards and move back in,” said Division Chief John Whitlatch of the Canton Fire Department.

Incomplete renovation attempts or damage done by copper thieves or vagrants leave large holes in floors that pose another danger for firefighters, who are called upon to feel their way through thick, smoke-filled obstacle courses in which someone could be trapped.

“Of course, you always have that risk on the inside,” said Battalion Chief Thomas Garra. “If it’s a nighttime fire, you have a lot of smoke in there, these (firefighters) are crawling, they’re not walking through and they’re looking for the source of the fire. They’re also trying to find a person inside and they could easily go down a hole.”

ELIMINATING EYESORES

Whitlatch said if vacant houses could be eliminated, “then arson fires would reduce. But it takes a lot of money to do that.”

Zumbar said he is seeking help from townships, villages and cities in Stark County to address the countywide issue of vacant houses.

The $2 million grant, which his office applied for in August, would be used to wipe vacancies that have been deemed uninhabitable from the map.

“The amount that the Stark County Land Re-Utilization Corporation (LRC) or county land bank put forth from its own matching amount was $1.5 million,” he said. So the county now has $3.5 million available to “demolish dilapidated, condemned or blighted structures,” he said.

The grant expires Dec. 31, 2013, leaving officials not much time to act. Zumbar has held workshop sessions with townships, villages and cities in Stark County.

“The grant allows us to either contract with a vendor to demolish residential structures, or enter into a sub-recipient grant with the municipalities in their existing demolition program,” he said.

“For those frugal enough to be able to offer a match, there’s an expectation of immediate improvement to the quality of life in the neighborhoods that have abandoned, dilapidated houses. Eyesores disappear. Dangerous playgrounds for curious children are gone. Havens for criminals are eliminated. Property values rise.”

Once those eyesores are removed, the property on which they sat can be sold.

Many of these properties, Zumbar said, are vacant and the owner is either delinquent on paying taxes and other assessments or can’t be found. Many owners of vacant houses in Canton do not live here and never have.

The county auditor’s office website listed the owner of 615 Wells as a Coshocton resident. Zumbar said many more vacant houses are listed as being owned by out-of-state owners who cannot be found.

“The LRC is ideally suited to step in, demolish the structure on behalf of the city, get good clear title to the property, and basically make that land ready for potential development,” Zumbar said. “We can get it into the hands of the adjoining property owners or let the city take possession of it for its use or, if the county land bank wants to hold onto it, we could sell it again, either to the adjoining property owners or to a new owner.”

“That’s a positive thing for the city, for the community in general,” said Police Chief Bruce Lawver. “(Vacant houses) attract vagrants and crime. Some of these houses are used as flophouses, drug houses and so on.”

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